


The Man That Never Was

by dottore_polidori



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Class Issues, Identity Issues, Injury, M/M, Murder, Poverty, Pre-Canon, Prostitution, The Unholy Ghost of Jean Genet, Theft, bildungsroman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 01:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15232368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottore_polidori/pseuds/dottore_polidori
Summary: This is a gift for pileofsith / Adsecula for The Terror Fan Exchange on Tumblr.One of the prompts was to make you feel sympathy for Hickey, to provide a window into his survivalist way of thinking, to see him suffering as a consequence of his actions, and to see him do something good, for once. Do I need to say that I got a little carried away with this? I loved the ideas you gave me to work with; I only hope it is nottoodark and serious.This is a story about the man who took Hickey's name: his childhood, his education as a criminal-philosopher, his loves and his betrayals. If it weren't for the deadline this could have been longer still, I tell you.





	The Man That Never Was

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adsecula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adsecula/gifts).



They’re hunting for pigeons when it happens. William is little then, and follows him about like Mother told him to, stepping on the soles of his heels. As the elder brother, Edward is responsible for the life of this one — this at an age that three years make difference in size and experience.

They are hungry, no money left for them at table. There is hard bread and cheese, and half a jar of raspberry jam too sugary sweet to have had much fruit in its making. They break their fasts — Edward in charge of the sharp eating knife — and for an hour they are satisfied. When their bellies rumble again, he suggests that they go outside, catapult in his hand.

It is a false contest between the two. Rat is easier to trap, but it takes some time, and what little flesh can be gleaned has this tough, chewy quality that leaves one yearning for something, anything else. Pigeon is tastier, but the catching takes skill. There is no difference as to cleanliness — in the city, you will see them picking at rubbish and merds, bathing in black water. Still, cleaned of its crop and proper boiled, it makes better eating than the mystery pies that Mother brings for their supper.

What is left of the bread he puts into William’s hands, that he should break it into crumbs. Meanwhile he combs for stones. The best cobbles are round, and a fit to the thrower’s fist; that way they land hard and true. The ground is covered in refuse, rags and broken crockery the least offensive sights. Some of the bigger cobbles have come loose and broken in half. One of these parts he takes. He weighs it in hand, tosses it until he’s become used to the feeling. Not good, but it will do. If it were up to Edward, he would continue to look elsewhere. But William is too small. If they were to leave, someone might try and snatch him. Maybe they would take him too. Two smalls for the price of one.

“Go play with the others, Willy,” says Edward, fitting the angular stone against the rubber. There are other children around, the sons and daughters of neighbours, though the configuration varies. Those deemed too small to work, those resting, those of irregular occupation. “I’ll be done quicker if you’re gone. Talk to me and I’ll miss it.”

But William shuffles his feet against the dust, further weathering the leather of his shoes.

Edward’s patience is worn to tatters. With Father gone, and Mother at the factory, he hasn’t a second alone to himself. He makes a sudden movement with his fist, and William scrams.

It is a difficult pick for the inexperienced. Any pigeon can look fat under those feathers. But it is those who are sick that will puff up, so to look bigger. No, the meatier ones are the leaner, cleaner, sure-footed birds. His stomach contracts at the thought of meat. It has been weeks since they’ve had that — meat. The pies Mum brings are onion and grease in a thick crust. This one, or that? The speckled white, the glittering grey? Both of them bright-eyed, the picture of health. The rock cradled in its strip, he stretches… And so it flies.

He does not see William with his fellows, his head turned in direction of the sound. By then it is too late. The children crowd around him as he falls, holding his broken face in his hand. By the time that Edward arrives an older boy is helping him to sit, the one they call Black Thomas. He is alive, at least, and awake, shocked to hiccups. “S’not as bad as he looks,” says Thomas, who was once beat with a brick by the foreman. “Blood always gushes like that, from a cut to the head.”

William is crying. His head is swelling already, the blood a fountain from his brow painting the front of his small body. How much could he contain? The others clear a circle, and some of them try to speak. Thomas hands him a kerchief, but he cannot listen over the sound of his own heart.

That rock was no good, and still, and still…

 

“Come ‘ere, ye son of Cain,” she calls out to him, and he goes forth with his head bowed. “Ye nearly took our your brother’s eye.”

The first murderer, who like him put a rock to his brother’s head.

***

He vows never to set foot in a factory again, the image burnt to his mind’s eye. Mary Brown mangled, who had such white hands — Mary Brown murdered in what has been termed an unhappy accident. The machines live, and are hungred for flesh. This much he has seen with his own two eyes, her fingers caught between the gears and pulled, her arm devoured to the shoulder. How she wailed as the force bent her bones, and snapped all of her ligaments.

All of this for three shillings a week — a petty sum to die for. Yet there she was, with her eyes rolled back, as they carried her to hospital. She passed that very night, for loss of blood, at the age of ten — this after they sawed off the remnant, or so he hears tell at the beer shop, copper in hand for his evening ration. Not much younger than himself she’d been, of an age with his brother William, and a neighbour too. Now she is gone to the earth.

She’d been lucky, in a way. Others live to tell the tale, but are paid not, and cared for neither, that is, until they’re wheeled up to the workhouse. Small improvement, the long neglect.

Mother doesn’t take it well, threatens to smack the child for his insolence. Fourteen hours’ repetition leave her little patience for such fancies. The family must be fed, and being a fatherless household, all must contribute with their wages.

***

He sleeps in an empty stall at the very edge of the market, a temporary reprieve from vagrancy. It is unoccupied for being so drafty and rickety and damp, the poles rotten where the beetles haven’t made their holes. He is lucky: were it a better place, a bigger man would have come to throw him out of it, or worse yet offered him space in turn for a favour.

The first thing he steals is a shriveled apple, soon to be sold for pig slop. He chooses something that won’t be missed, that no one would chase him for, a ritual for boldness, for easing into lawlessness. It tastes like the gods in its acrid sweetness, without compare to the onion peel he’d brought to his mouth only the night before.

He is nearly a man. Though small, he must eat, and so he baits the pigeons with hard bread. He does not bother with his catapult, a child’s play thing left behind at the house. He does not aim — the rock finds the target of its own, like a living thing. In a second his knife flashes red, securing the meal for the night.

He goes to the abandoned burial ground, where the vagrants burn rubbish for warmth. He roasts the bird there, the other hand in his pocket to remind them what it is he keeps. He scraped a drunk across the face once, for tugging at the leg of his bird. This gave him some fame for bravery, but truth be told he’d been terrified of the man’s strength, of his gin and night-soil stench. The knife was already in his hand for the carving, but he would have fled if he hadn’t been so damned hungry. That was the last time he feared from the likes of them. After that they made no trouble.

They’ve started to call him Ginger, for his red head, and he does not bother to correct them. What use is a name when one’s already dead? When people pass him by — proper people, in their burnished coats, the women in their hats and white sleeves, even regular working people — they do not see him at all. He is a part of the city’s sorry scenery; no surprise, then, that sometimes he prefers to be burning bones in the company of the nearly dead men.

There is a boy of an age with him, or somewhat older, that looks at him but does not speak. He doesn’t have a name either, but is called Tabbycat for his wall-climbing. Word goes that he is something of a genius, with a thousand grand robberies under his belt. Edward is jealous of this one doing so well all things considered, but his efforts at hardening his heart turn to water the moment he sees him approaching.

“I got this one for you.” It is the first time that they properly speak, one to one. Somehow they have ended up alone, the others retired to their holes. “I had a thought it would suit your colouring.”

He dips a hand in his pocket, and takes out a closed fist. Edward doesn’t stop to think, extends his palm in curiosity. The boy’s hand is clammy against his skin, and his first instinct is to retract — until he feels something rubbing between them, hard and cold. Tabby peels away his hand, satisfied as the stone drops of its own weight, shining black in the firelight.

“What is it?” He hasn’t the faintest idea what it is, but the cut of it looks expensive.

“A sapphire,” says Tabby, smug. “And there’s more where that came from, if you’d work with me.”

The cat’s place is not so bad, an abandoned cellar made to look boarded up. It has a dark latrine smell, likely seeping from adjoining houses, but that is no worse than the place where he grew up, where three or four families had a share of the privy.

“There was a lad living here with me,” he explains, kicking at some things strewn across the floor. A pair of shoes, a knapsack. “Tried to cheat me, so next time we went on a job I pushed him out the window.” Edward must have blanched, for the boy cackled, high and musical. “I din’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. But the coppers got to him, they did. Lord knows what they’re doing to him now.”

Edward takes a seat on the edge of the sunken pallet, imagines its former occupant, imprisoned with hardened men, God knows for how many years. They don’t give a death sentence for thievery no more, but there’s still transportation, and so many die in the cramped quarters of the ships, or so he’s been told.

“You left your friend to the dogs, that’s why you want me. So you can do the same to me.” In the short time that he’s lived alone, he’s learned to test. Needn’t be surprised by a stranger’s character, left in the dark with broken promises.

“I can’t do this alone,” the boy shrugs. “I mean, I could, but… You’ve got a deft hand, if you can catch those birds. I’ll teach you everything, yeah? I’ve seen the place where you sleep, and you need this as much as me.”

It’s good that the cellar is deep, for Edward reddens with shame. He fingers the stone in his pocket.

“You got me,” he tilts his head, smiling to hide the hurt. “But if you leave me back there, I tell you now that as soon as I get out I’ll be cutting you a new shitter.”

Better to keep an eye on the one than to be looking over his shoulder. An easy choice, not to go back to the streets. Whatever does happen, this way he’ll be sleeping by a fire.

Tabby likes what he hears, the smile mirrored fanged and praising. “You do what is right by you. Might be you won’t have to.”

The money from the stone buys him clothes. They are plain, but new: not second or third-hand bought what belonged to a corpse, or a fast-growing tradesman’s son. Stolen kerchiefs tide them over, dealt to the rag and bone men no questions asked. The splendid robberies he thought to enact under Tabby’s tutelage are rare happenings, planned over weeks with the precision of ritual, though if he were an able teacher before, Ginger’s enthusiasm emboldens him to perfect his method.

This results in a princely sum for both, equally cut for these peas in a shell even with the fence’s fractional rate. It is through this income that he realises his love of clothing, of fine things he’d never dared to consider before. It is during one of these moods that he convinces Tabby to change lodgings, being that they can afford them.

“Someone out there’d kill for a place like this,” Tabby protests at first, but Ginger has it all thought out.

“You’d say that because you were the one to find it. But look at us, so proper dressed, after all we’ve worked for. We deserve something better, do we? We already drink and eat to our heart’s content. Why can’t we sleep someplace warm?”

He believes this, that they can improve through the comforts they’ve gained. By being seen, they can become men again. Tabby sees the value in this, and next thing they’ve nailed up the door and left for the tenement. That is the end of the old cellar.

Besides robbery, there are other ways to make do. When the harvest is lean, a handsome fellow can save his teeth by lending his love. They are common enough, the casual sodomites, indistinguishable in a crowd: long-shanked urchins, strong-backed labourers, students down on their luck, having squandered their monthly allowance.

But there are others who practise full-time, pretty red-mouthed things, savage as panthers. Some of them are lucky to catch the eye of a gentleman, and to bewitch him. They grow wise of necessity, these boys. The customers can be as rough as them, or worse, and a season doesn’t pass that one of them doesn’t turn up missing — fled to another city, one would hope, in the aftermath of some crime.

“Annie’s come down sick,” newsboy Jackie brings about the message. ”Says if you can cover for the night.”

Ginger knows her, or rather him: a boy in petticoats, long-legged, narrow-waisted, with the long sad face of an actress. Merry in her cups, though, with a full head of red hair.

“It’s about a man,” Jackie leans in, as though Ginger hadn’t pieced it from her name. “He’ll give two shillings if he likes the look of you, but I wouldn’t worry about that. She asked me to go to you first, did she.”

The novelty entices more than the money. The danger, the prospect of stealing Annie’s man — he always thought himself prettier than she, scoffed at the compliments given her — of castigating the poor wretch and getting thanks for it. All of this without entertaining the possibility that he could be — and he could be, a hard and handsome man, a broad-backed sailor bringing the sugar in from Jamaica.

“Where do I find this man?” he says finally, hands in his pockets, thumbing the handle of his tool. “I hope to god she hasn’t pawned me off to some rotten-masted stinker.”

“Wouldn’t know about that.” Jackie’s honest, or a bad liar, which is the same. When he lies, he squints, or he rubs his cap, but now he is honestly noncommittal. “He’s not bad looking though. I seen him in his tall hat.”

“A man of means, you say? I’m in for a treat, then.”

Happy Annie seeking a replacement is queer enough, and here be the reason. The man has a purse, and she wants in on it no matter what. Ginger smiles. There won’t be a crumb left to her when he has his way, bags the purser like a fat coney. His heart flutters with mischief. He’s laughing, with a closed mouth.

“I’m to take you to him, if you want the job.” Jackie shrugs, ignorant of the hatching plan.

 

They become famous, in that common, wretched way: Tabby and Ginger, the canniest boy whores in all of the industrial North. Professional dockside loiterers, gobbling tall tales from nut-brown sailors, among other things; coveting the strange fruits and wild meats from across the wide blue sea, finished with the sickly sweet or otherwise tasteless preserves of blessèd England.

They dream of going away to one of these Lands of Always Summer his Irish auntie told him about, where everyone is happy and no man grows old, with wild-eyed fairy maids for attendants. They will bathe in sandy beaches, naked like the first men. They will go but not yet, with so many fools ripe for picking.

***

He cares for Tabby in their rented room, brings spoonfuls of broth to his mouth when he’s wake enough to lift his head. From the pillows, he smiles at his stories and his gentle petting, though he's weak to speak or open his crusted eye. All the while, Ginger considers what to do. He does not like the rattling sound of his breathing. It reminds him of home, of Mother fretting as the babies died.

His meeting with the fence leaves a nagging feeling of having been cheated — that was a gentleman’s watch, if he’d ever seen one, and he’d put his neck on the line for it. But he’d needed the money, for coal and rent and food and laudanum, with which to ease the coughing.

Yet these are the basic expenses. If Tabby dies, he won’t afford a coffin, much less a burial plot. Better that his body be used for the learning of them doctors than be put into a common grave, to be dug up and mangled as the sexton pleases. As a child, having nothing better to do, he’d take William with him to the churchyard. There, they would play skittle-ball: one put the long bones up, as the other picked a skull from the ground and tried to knock them over. This they did time and time again, until William told and their mother cut him for it.

As Tabby sweats under the covers, Ginger knows he will have to be out again, and soon. To beg, steal, and borrow, or catch the eye of a gentleman, if he is lucky. But if he comes back to Tabby white and stiffening, he will mourn, and count himself forgiven. Cut a lock of his hair, and guard it. Procure a locket for its keeping. There can be no other way. He knows a man that knows a man. This life of theirs allows no moment of indecision.

***

A man in black opens the back door, leads him to the bath that has been prepared beforehand. The florid merchant is rich — the house three stories tall, with a high ceiling, though they do not pass through the ornate rooms reserved for formal visits. They arrive at a room filled with steam, the water heated for one who must dry-rub his skin to rid it of the excess fat.

He dips a hand before undressing, chasing the chill from his fingers. He almost forgets the man standing by the threshold, watching. By the time that Ginger turns — and the man is waiting for him to turn — he gestures to the bars of perfumed soap, set by the foot of the tub — rose, olive, clove; to the clean washcloth, to the robe he must afterward don. “Take your time,” says the man in black. He does not judge; no doubt he has practised such a welcome. “When you are ready, I shall take you to him.”

Now he is alone. The chamber is more spacious than the hovels in which the likes of him are raised. Doubt creeps, the prickling sensation of being out of place. But this is only for a moment. He entertains no thoughts after he has stripped, laid his best clothes in a heap, and taken the plunge into the searing hot. The water splashes over the edge as he dips his head, then leans back, lets himself soak to his Adam’s apple. Ah… For the first time he is glad to be small, for his body to be contained in such a space. Never has he been so warm, except, perhaps, in the mother’s womb, prior to his expulsion into the world.

The soaps smell of things to eat, and taste of bitter wax. He makes foam in his hands out of every one, which he rubs onto his body with diligence — the neglected parts of his elbows and feet, the back of his neck, the inner parts of his thighs. Such lovely dainties — he should put one in the pocket of his jacket, after this part is done. Let it not be said he is selling himself cheaply; he will milk the man of these pleasures. His patron so loving will have to wait.

***

They burn their clothes. It is with a bitter heart that they do so — some of these things they’ve bought with their own gains, others received or taken as gifts from generous customers.

This isn’t the first time that he’s killed, but never has he done away the life of a gentleman, and in his own house, no less. He needed only to pretend to be asleep, and he might have lived; he might have lived if he hadn’t opened his bloody mouth.

At least he has this to laugh about: them silent, stiff-backed servants startled out of their hearts by the racket of the master’s murder, calling every name in the house.

After all the work he put into gaining the merchant’s trust, he had to go and do that. Ginger had proved his worth and more over the last few months, letting the man pinch and prod him with his grubby fingers, bending down to the salty smell of his disease. This had been the last of such times he’d been asked to stay the night. Though his hand had itched, and his eye widened at the sight of such fineries, he had taken nothing. Kept his fingers safely put in their pockets when they were not occupied for the giving.

The man had asked for his name, fostering intimacy, but he had not conceded.

“Ginger. Surely that isn’t the name that your mother gave to you.”

The man talked down to him like a child. Of all the things he’d had to endure, this was among the greatest indignities.

“I need no other, sir,” he put on the mask of shame. “My ma needn’t be learning of my occupation. People would talk, sir. It would break her heart.”

Yet the man had insisted, as his kind are wont to do, always pressing, like the weight of him at night. “I can help you, boy. You are aware of that? Whatever problems you have, I can make disappear. They will be as nothing, poof! You can have a good life, yet.”

“You are too kind, sir.” How he hated that florid face. How he swept his sickly wants under the pretense of charity. “Another time I’ll tell you. Now lie back, sir, and let me take care of you.”

Over these visits he had cased the place, taken note of windows, ledges, empty rooms and servants’ exits. On the days that Tabby wasn’t working — the term applied loosely — he’d come down to give his professional opinion. Arm in arm they went, all proper dressed, two friends on a walk. They laid out the route together, whispering, Ginger pointing with his chin, Tabby sighing and shaking his head. “I know what I said. Darker is better, narrower best, but you have to remember the way.” Before turning tricks made a profit, Tabby’d earned his keep as a midnighter.

He pressed a kiss to the fabric of his shoulder, a daring gesture in the light of day. “You won’t be wearing your uncle’s old trousers no more, when all’s said and done. This’ll be a fat one, I tell you.”

“No need to get ahead of ourselves, Ginge. This talk of spending, it’s bad luck, no good at all.” He frowned, considering the weight of the jinx. Ginger smiled. Tabby had always been the superstitious of the two. For Ginger there was only chance, and a job well done. “We do when it’s finished, when we’re pouring out the bag in the comforts of our home. When we’re all cozy, that’s when we say: shall we go down by the waterfront? Rent a goose-feather bed for the night? And all those things you go on about.”

“Shall we go away then? Someplace nice, you and me.” He stopped, and turned to face his friend. His eyes were clear in the afternoon sun, but Tabby would not meet them. He pulled away, and said, “We don’t talk like that. I told you. Now look, those buildings there cast a shadow.”

On the decreed day, Ginger made the man laugh and acted the cupbearer, wore him out in the usual manner. When the pace of his breathing had slowed, he maneuvered the arm from around his waist, put on his many layers. The man did not wake when he pulled at the skin of his reddened cheek, when he put a finger into his open mouth and touched the tip of his tongue.

Ginger stuck out his head and whistled.

It must have been a while that he paced, his heart threatening to burst out bleeding from his mouth. Then he remembered what needed to be done, and dried his palms on the front of his jacket. He fumbled with the pick, but soon enough opened a drawer. He teased it out gently. It was full of papers that he wasn’t able to read — but there, in a corner, was an engraved ring. He put it into his pocket, then moved to the next. 

Tabby climbed up the ledges, soft and silent as a cat, all the while balancing the burlap sack, and a knotted rope around his shoulder. Ginger nearly pissed himself at the sight of the shadow man — not that he’d ever believed in ghosts — relaxed at the appearance of those lanky legs passing the threshold, one after the other. They plucked out pens, snuff-boxes, a little jewelled knife, a wind-up watch, and finally the wad of notes from which Ginger received his pay. His throat made a sound of satisfaction, and Tabby shushed. “Careful!”

The man was stirring in his bed. He’d have kept put, for sure, if hadn’t expected the other lying beside him. He searched the bed with his wide hand, the more certain with each passing moment. The boys froze, watching, crouching by their guilty mess. Ginger cursed in his mind — if they’d just remembered to put out the lamp…

“Go back to sleep, sir. I’m taking the air, is all.”

The perfect mimic of an innocent should have been enough, but the man being a voluptuary had wanted to see, so he opened his rheumy eyes to find not one, but two, and both of them clothed to his displeasure. “What is the meaning of this?”

The spirits were still in him, but the sleep he was blinking away. Anger flashed across his face as he sat, and noticed the sack fisted in the boy’s hand. “This is how you repay me, child? I should have known better than to cultivate the attentions of an urchin. You will regret your life. _Collins! Vergil!_ ” He called out to his men in black.

All grew cold — he knew well what would happen if they ended up in custody of the police. Prison — transportation — 

“Sir! Be quiet, please! We’ll be going, now, there’s no need —”

“Would you come up here this instant! Collins! Vergil!” Now he was shouting deep from the chest, the warning carried into the clear night air.

“Shut him up, will you?” Tabby secured the rope around the legs of the dresser. “Stuff his mouth in with a rag, or something —”

The man was heftier than the both of them put together, and strong. He rose to meet them, unafraid of the spindly boy come forward, meagre flesh and bird bones, hardly a whisker to his cheek — it would be easy to choke, to beat him into submission and save the worst for the one uninvited. The knife hadn’t been sharpened since it was made, or so it seemed, a pretty thing for the looking — but still it sank into his belly. The man screamed in pain, his face twisted like a carnival mask; he grabbed the boy’s throat and squeezed. The knife’s handle slid from his grip. Fingers scratched at the strangling hand. He had not prepared for this — he could neither speak, nor hear, nor see, his legs uselessly kicking.

He fell to his knees, and his starved lungs heaved.

By the time that he lifted his head, Tabby had carved up the man real nice, spilling blood all over the carpet, over the sheets and Tabby’s sleeves. “Give me a hand, will ya?” What a ghastly sight — the naked man towering, not yet drained of his life’s blood, the blade from the first stab buried up to the glinting hilt. What fearsome sound — the wailing high and wordless — what rotten smell of the punctured gut, like an open sewer. It came to his mind, the ridiculous image of a spoiled sausage, casing split and spilling maggots. Tabby was struggling to throw the man on to the bed, and Ginger got up to help.

“Hold him back while I finish him,” he said and pulled, pulled out the knife with a wet sound. This time he sunk it in the spaces between the ribs.

“He’s still alive,” panted Tabby. The man gurgled, flat on his back. Blood bubbled from the chest wounds, his eyes gone dark and unfocused.

“Let’s go. I think I heard footsteps.”

He hadn’t heard a thing, but if anyone was coming at all, they would have been well on their way by then. He didn’t mean to stay and find out.

They hardly bothered with the rope, but let themselves land feet first on the tile roof of the side building. His ankle crunched and gave, but Tabby pulled him up by the elbow, and after that the rush of fear was enough to propel him. It was dark, and he didn’t remember the way like they’d rehearsed it, but Tabby led him, away from the thoroughfares, where they could be sighted, out of the wide streets where they might be trampled even at this hour. Nobody was following that they could see, but still they took the winding way. He wanted to stop, but knew that the pain would overtake him, and so remained silent. Tabby had a grim look, and spoke only to give directions.

It was nearly light when they got home. A neighbour looked on from her windowsill, smiled toothless and enigmatic.

That is life. Gives with one hand, takes with the other. Now they huddle round the fire, like the phantoms that they are, in the empty burial ground. Tabby drapes an arm over his shoulders and holds tight, both of them shivering in their rags.

***

Tabby rolls on to his side, and sighs — the shudder, he thinks, a prelude to tears. But though his eyes do shine, it is not this that happens. He lays a hand over the fluttering heart, turns to his ear and whispers. It is impossibly cold, as the secret most dreadful of all they’ve committed, separate and joint: “I love you, Ginge; it’s true.”

He looks him in the eye before he betrays, a kiss to bitten lips. The tongue awakens, and they move on to other things.

As morning lightens he packs their valuables into a sack, hesitates, pulls out the silverware for the pawning, and another thing: the merchant’s signet ring. A collection of symbols, something about fathers and grandfathers, rancid and rotting down in the cellars of the Earth.

All this is nothing to him, the son of a factory worker.

The ring is old, and gold, and he is glad to leave it. Maybe Tabby will have it melted, if he’s not hanged for having been found in possession.

He lingers longer than he ought, watching Tabby stir, the covers tangled along his nakedness. He will be sleeping until the hunger wakes him, like every other day. If only it were — any other day.

He throws down some notes for living expenses. This much he owes to the one that taught him all — certainly more, but how else is he to bring this new life to fruition?

Somebody told, and if they haven’t, no doubt they will for the price of a pretty penny. They will be looking for two: one red and the other dark. Two whores of an age. If one is caught, he does not expect for them to find two. Tabby will forget his face, if he knows what is good.

He crosses the threshold, into the grey light, and is Ginger no more, sheds the name like an old skin.

***

He thinks to see William grown, polishing an apple against his brown suit. But when he turns in the midst of his approach, the set of his brow is different — unmarked, and his hair is darker, lightly curled where William’s was straight as horsehair. If the man were William, he would be saying, now, “You’ve done well for yourself, laddie,” and be glad, for true, that one of them had pulled himself out of the pit.

The truth is, he doesn’t know his brother’s face. Nor would he know whom to ask whether he still lives — and if he did, he would hesitate still to show himself, being so well known under this guise. How much, exactly, would William be shamed to learn of their association? To learn that his brother turned sodomite for the pay, or worse, followed what had been his natural inclination.

It is too late to back down, for the man has acknowledged his searching look. The corners of his eyes crinkle. Have they met before? No… He would remember any one so cruelly mistaken.

“I’d taken you for a friend,” this much is true. “A friend of mine, I mean. You have his look.”

He cannot tell whether the shyness is true, or a reflex of his body. Some favour boldness, others — well — a certain girlish coyness, subject to this idea of what a man should be, even when they are receiving. 

“And what, pray tell, is this ‘look’?” The man holds his eye, biting into the fruit. The juices flow down his wrist, past his yellowing cuff. His stomach protests, folding in itself. If this isn’t the beginning of an ulcer, he doesn’t know what is. His mouth waters at the wafting sweetness.

“Right and honourable,” he flatters, fixates on the marks left on the skin. The man has his front teeth, at least. “A man of business, ready to take on the world.”

“Might be I know your friend. What’s his name again?”

Could William have made it this far south? It wouldn’t be strange, not at all. London gathers rats like a kitchen midden. And if anyone can do well for himself, it would be him. He keeps the name close to his heart.

“Edwards,” he says, meaning nothing. Strange thrill — to say the true name out loud, after so many years. Who lays claim upon this Edward? It is a common name, after all. Who should miss him but one, maybe two, being generous? He will go back to Edward when he has something to show for. Now he must build a new self to inhabit, for Ginger is dead, and besides, soon he will be too old to play the sailor’s wife. A sorry sight, the wan painted face of an aging trickster. That will not be his end, but he will make best of a bad situation. When he goes, the man follows.

***

He’d never thought to see them here, bleeding-heart middle-class churchmen in their ironed frocks. It is appropriate that they should refer to their venture as a mission, flocking like so many bats to spread the good news to the godless heathens of the Old Nichol. Impassioned sermons about brotherly love, the evils of drink, and the goodness of honest labour impress on the most innocent members of the flock; others, like him, have come for the nightly classes. He means to learn his letters, and most surprising, they care enough to teach him, though he be unoccupied and given them a name so patently false as that of John Smith.

The teachers at the factory school were never so patient, with him or any of the children, so rather than waste his life sitting and understanding naught, he’d deserted to lay traps for the rats. The instructors at the mission are all volunteers of moderate means and education, and for all of their good intentions, treat their pupils like overgrown children, to be taught and to be corrected.

He endures this the best way he can: by amusing himself, and flustering his would-be superiors. One of these has taken a special interest in him, for being one of the few to ask questions of theology: about the nature of good and evil, the will of God, and the choices made by men. Mr Jeffries is a few years older than he, firm and gentle, and not altogether unattractive. He wants to become a priest, he says, so he can further God’s work upon this Earth.

“You don’t believe any of this, do you?” He lingers after a lesson, curiosity got the better of him.

Mr Jeffries erases the black board and turns to him, encouraging in spite of the late hour. “How do you mean, Mr Smith? Do you care to elaborate?”

“It’s all just stories. Jacob wrestling with the angel. The bleeding star above the manger. This part most of all: that the meek should inherit the earth. Do you see it, sir? The poor men and women, here, in Shoreditch; what have we to show for an inheritance?”

Rubbish and merds. Stench and sickness.

Not expecting a question of that calibre, Jeffries takes a moment to collect his thoughts. His mouth slackens, and his brow furrows with concern.

“No righteous person believes that the suffering of the poor can be justified, least of all God. He loves all of His children, from the monarch to the meanest beggar. He wants for us to help one another, to the measure of our means and our abilities. Those who little have can be the most compassionate, sharing of their bread with a hungry neighbour…” The pity collected over his labours begins to flow, and John understands: _he is not looking to reassure me only_. “That is the Kingdom of Heaven, the friendships that we build in such brief lives. What little good we can do for one another, God sees it, He rewards these kindnesses as though the Lord Himself had received them.”

“ _For I was hungry, and you fed me…_ ”

“Yes!”

“Are we just waiting to die, then?”

“No, Mr Smith, that is not what He means at all!”

John Smith scratches his nose to hide a smirk.

“Isn’t it though, what you lot want from us? To suffer and die quiet. Those workers without an arm or a leg, who can’t work any more all so a chinless top ‘atted bastard can get himself another house in the city.”

Jeffries rubs his eyes, and the pain of his expression is so honest that John nearly regrets what he said. But he is in the right, he knows, even if the book is a load of tosh, and Jeffries has to hear it.

“Not all of us are like that,” counters Jeffries, a softness to his voice. “I don’t expect you to thank me, far from it, but some people do try to be good. We wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t go to the confines of the world if it weren’t so.” He looks down to his hands, which he’s been rubbing against each other, then back to John. “We do what we can. We’re trying.”

“Mr Jeffries, you’re a smart man, surely you can look beyond your book-learning.” He’s growing bored of this, of Jeffries’ guilt, of their widening differences of condition. They speak the same language, but can they truly understand one another? For this he must be plain, reach out in terms he will recognise.

“A mother and her babes — she won’t be thinking of her neighbours’ when hers are sick or starving. And this is no fault of hers. We folk do what we can. It’s not us that need God, but our betters,” he sneers, “who use us like so many tools, leave us out when we’ve been broken.”

Mr Jeffries waxes hostile with each passing word, but waits to speak until he’s finished. “There are others in our group petitioning Parliament for the implementation of labour laws, haven’t you heard? And this work is no less important, or you would not be here at this late hour.” His eyes are hard. But he remembers himself, and sighs. They shouldn’t part angry with each other. “I am sorry. It’s getting late.”

“Let me see you out, sir. It’s just a few blocks, but you’ll be safer with me.” He stacks the papers on the desk and hands them over to the schoolmaster. He makes his face sad and sweet, apologetic. He’s not a bad man, Jeffries, but he can never know what it’s like. When he can’t conceive of hunger, of having to work for a bed.

“All right.” The tips of their fingers touch, and his lower parts burn with desire, but the man gives no sign of recognition. “Let us go, then.”

***

Cornelius Hickey should have closed his fool mouth, retired to his rooms when he still was clear-headed, being alone in a strange city. It is true what they say about the hearts of Empires, how they suck of the periphery all that is good — her men, her ores, her grain, her meat.

Here is one of them given to the fishes that still populate the Regent’s canal. It’s weighted with stones, so it’ll be time before it’s found, if it surfaces at all. By then he’ll be halfway to Greenland with the dead man’s papers and a new name for his very own. So many go missing, so many. So many lost, walking unaccompanied, having tempted the wrong kind of man.

They’ll make port at the tropics, the man had said, boasted of the good time to be had by all. Palm trees seared by the gleaming sun, after a year freezing. If anything, he’s surprised that nobody nabbed him first, and with him the lifelong dream.

A queer name, Cornelius. That is good, it will make it easier to remember. Still, he will shed it like all of the others, when he’s free. May be he’ll go back to Edward. No one would think to look for Edward.


End file.
